Last year I planted a small garden, just to “test the waters” so to speak. I’ve always liked the idea of having a garden, but wasn’t sure if I would actually enjoy it. I grew up helping my parents tend to the garden(s) at their house. Anyway, I did enjoy gardening but was quite discouraged by the critters eating most of it before I could. The only thing that grew plentiful last year were the cherry tomatoes. All my carrots had the tips chewed off. Dang moles!
Anyway, this year I decided to go bigger and better! A neighbor friend had a big tiller on the back of his mower, so he came over and tilled up my garden. It was quite an adventure. I didn’t take any picture, though I should have. He had to haul out a huge rock and several other large sized rocks as well. We have lots of rocky soil in our area.
It took me an entire day to plant my garden. I planted: tomatoes, strawberries, radishes, green beans, green peppers, cucumbers, peas, carrots, onions, corn and cherry tomatoes. It was hard work, but lots of fun. I truly enjoyed “becoming one with nature”. ;-) Below are some pictures of my garden.
Here’s a very dirty me. This is what I looked like after all day of gardening. It’s messy work, but someone’s gotta do it. 
Here is the finished product of the planting. I used sticks and string to identify where the rows are, I wanted to make sure I wasn’t pulling up plants while thinking they were weeds. It helped, a lot!! The zigzag wire thingy is for the peas to grow up. 
A close up view of the green peppers, cucumbers, corn, peas, cherry tomatoes, carrots, onions and green beans. Yumminess!!!
A close up view of the tomatoes, strawberries, radishes and green beans. 
Too keep out most of the critters Dave put up fence. I haven’t had anything eating my veggies…yet!! The deer haven’t attempted to jump the fence…yet. Dave does have a mole trap set up in the garden area, there has been evidence of moles but none of my veggies have been eaten yet. The trap has been tripped a few times, but nothing was caught. 
A close up view of my growing yumminess! I hadn’t been able to weed it for a few weeks so it took me 3 days and a major sunburn to get it all done. As soon as all the weeds were gone the veggies started growing like crazy!! Well, that and all the rain we had one week helped too. ;-) 
My first harvest!!! Blackberries (a fun surprise) and radishes. I’ve since picked radishes two more times. I need to plant more radishes here soon. 
A few years ago, in the middle of the summer, I got some raspberry plants from a friend of mine. I planted them right away and got some raspberries later that fall. Due to transplanting them so late in the summer they didn’t produce fruit each year until late summer/early fall. However, this year due to the early and very warm spring we had, they are already producing fruit. Dave and I were out checking out the raspberry plants when we noticed a few feet away some more raspberries…or so we thought. Upon further investigation, we found an entire patch of blackberries growing in our brush. Oh my yumminess!!! We were/are so excited about the blackberries, they apparently haven’t produced anything until this year, otherwise we would’ve noticed them. Later that evening, Eli and I went out to clear out some of the brush to make it easier to access the blackberries. We picked a bowl full (which would’ve been fuller if Eli hadn’t eaten so many) and ate them with our supper. It was a fun surprise!!
Needless to say, I’m thoroughly enjoying my garden and gardening experience. I’ve gotten out a few more times to weed, I don’t need it to be an adventure like before, ugh! I can’t wait to eat more produce from my garden and relish the fact that I planted them, weeded them, sweated on them and picked them to share with friends and family. I’ll keep you posted on the final harvest and it’s yumminess!!
The Burlingames 